My first annual “Post One” Awards for Excellence in Non-Traditional Arts Journalism

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On June 18, the Minnesota Pro (as opposed to student) chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists held its annual Page One Awards. I was pleased to receive the award for Best Independent News Blog for this very blog, and I thought it would be appropriate to use my first post-ceremony post to recognize some people and organizations that deserve awards for their accomplishments on the new frontier of journalism—arts journalism in particular. They may not all consider themselves journalists, and they may not all consider themselves professionals, but they’re all contributing tremendously to keeping people informed and entertained in jobs (typically online) where there aren’t Pulitzer, or even Page One, categories…yet.These are entirely subjective “awards,” and, yes, many of the recipients are my friends. Call that a conflict of interest if you will, but (a) I’m inventing these awards, so I get to make up the rules, and (b) it’s not like those professional journalists who give each other awards aren’t all friends too. At some point, everybody knows everybody and that’s just the way it is. Continue Reading

MOVIE REVIEW | “Man of Steel” lives up to its name: Really heavy, really boring

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Somewhere near the end of Man of Steel, my girlfriend leaned over and whispered to me, “I can’t believe this movie isn’t over yet.” Neither could I—especially given that it hadn’t even really started yet.True, the movie had been going on for two-plus hours in the sense that images representing objects moving through space had been projected on the screen. In the slightly less technical sense, though, a movie doesn’t really start until it introduces characters who exist in a coherent universe functioning under some manner of constraint. It then continues with the introduction of circumstances that force the characters to make choices and develop. In Man of Steel, no characters ever have to make choices, so in a sense, they never actually exist.To be fair, Superman is a tough guy to work with. Continue Reading

Northern Spark 2013 in St. Paul: The best tweets and Instagram shots

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[<a href=”//storify.com/tcdailyplanet/northern-spark-2013″ target=”_blank”>View the story “Northern Spark 2013” on Storify</a>]Coverage of issues and events affecting Central Corridor communities is funded in part by a grant from the Central Corridor Funders Collaborative. Continue Reading

THEATER REVIEW | “Clybourne Park” at the Guthrie Theater: A play about “the American dilemma” and other euphemisms

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Clybourne Park is the kind of play that’s often referred to as “sociological”: it deals with issues of race, class, and neighborhood change. Really, though, Bruce Norris’s 2010 play—now being presented at the Guthrie Theater—would more accurately be described as psychological. The characters are aware of broad social issues insofar as their own lives are affected, but they don’t spend their time debating policy. Rather, we watch them trying to determine how to navigate those structures as individuals and as families, while trying—hard though it sometimes is—to treat others as they themselves would like to be treated.It’s a deeply human script, and director Lisa Peterson has crafted a production that’s consistently compelling and surprisingly (for a play about Big Issues) entertaining. Critically, this play about how people talk sounds like people actually talking. Continue Reading

Minnesota Orchestra in crisis: What our commenters are saying

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Having recently written posts titled, “Minnesota Orchestra on the rocks: What—if anything—should be done?” and “Does it matter that no one gives a shit about classical music any more?”, I braced myself when I answered the phone last night and the caller identified himself as being with the Minnesota Orchestra.As it turned out, though, he wasn’t a member of the administration calling to ask why I’m being so hard on one of the state’s most venerable cultural institutions; he was calling me as a past ticket buyer, trying to convince me to buy a discount package of ticket vouchers for next season. I declined, but asked the salesman what he was telling people who asked how confident he was that there would be a next season. Very confident, he said. “No one likes this situation, and we’re confident that an agreement will be reached. It’s a matter of when, not if.” He went on to continue trying to sell the tickets, noting that the discount offer would be “only available during the lockout.”After hanging up, I wondered how the musicians would feel if they knew the orchestra management was selling tickets at a special lockout discount, and the understandable frustration of many commenters with the orchestra’s administration became even more understandable.That frustration is by far and away the most frequently and stongly voiced sentiment expressed by commenters on the two posts mentioned above as well as on our poll about what should be done. Continue Reading